three threads of fate
by Ten-Faced
Summary: and they come together to make another knot in the tapestry of life. 1-white, black, red, reborn. 2-theatre of blood. 3-monsters in monochrome. StevenCynthia, RileyCheryl.
1. white, black, red, reborn

Inspired by Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. I own nothing.

**1. white, black, red, reborn.** You were just too interesting to be let eaten, my dear - AU, CynthiaSteven, mentioned RileyCheryl

* * *

Vampires don't exist in the real world, where all that matters is humans, humans and money, the country, the living.

She doesn't live in the real world. She knows that vampires exist, and she tracks the non-existent bloodsuckers down and stakes them, watches tearlessly as they hiss and powder away.

She didn't start, the lovely Cynthia with the long, pale, golden hair, she didn't start this brutal kill because of vengeance, or of retribution, or anything like that.

_(Heavens, no, all her family members are safe, never knew about the reality of the hidden lurkers)_

No, she started it because of a little gray-coloured birdie, whispering the names and addresses of murdering beasts into her ear with that raggedness, the hoarse whisper breathing down on the tip of her ear, making her shiver in something unidentified.

_(You were just too interesting to be let eaten, my dear)_

The people don't know why seemingly normal citizens are disappearing, never heard or seen again.

But they do see a decrease in the deaths, or the body find.

_(And see, you do make it a better world, my dear)_

She met him when she was little, watching two men fight about something. One of them seemed angry, and ripped off the other's head.

Little Cynthia, dressed in pretty princess white, wasn't scared. She just pouted at the red stains on her shoes.

_(Later, much later, it was revealed that the killed man wanted to eat her)_

The angry man apologized, and offered to buy her things. She refused, and he laughed, patting her little blond head, and telling her she had spunk.

_(She liked him)_

Introducing himself as Steven, the well-dressed man with silvery hair dropped her off at her house, but only after making her promise that she wouldn't tell, wouldn't let the secret be known, because that wasn't nice, and friends didn't do that, and weren't they friends now?

She pinky-swore, and left to grandma's.

_(Thank you)_

He visited, a constant in her life as everything changed as it must, and occasionally taught her about just what this world was. It's quite strange to a young one, when there are your legal guardians telling you that such myths don't exist, and your guardian of the 'myths' always proving they do.

She chose to believe the dark guardian angel, and let him mentor her in the survival ways, to help her live.

_(Such an interesting child….)_

It helped when she was attacked by one of the shades. Steven wasn't there, and the slobbering thing was on top of her, and it was all she could do to make sure he didn't get a good grip, when her hands closed around the splintered branch, there was no time to think.

She stabbed. Again, and again, and again, until the howls died out and the blood stopped gushing but she just kept going until a pair of strong arms wrapped around her and gently pulled her off.

_(Remarkable, darling)_

Seventeen, and a sort-of killer. The vampires aren't really alive, and she supposes it can't be murder if they don't actually live.

Steven is proud. He asks if she wants to consider vampire hunting.

_(But aren't _you_ a vampire?)_

_(I'm considered one of the nice ones)_

And she can't really bring herself to disappoint, and sheds her clothes of white, painting herself in black, following his lead. She moves out, makes stakes in her spare time, carries around light weapons capable of devastating damage, and trains with her guardian.

_(I'll be very disappointed in you if you get yourself killed)_

Twenty undead re-die at her hands, all in the span of two years. Word about a gifted human spread, but they don't protect themselves right, because they don't know it's one of them helping out, betraying them.

The numbers and years grow, never quite leaving her.

She doesn't want it to.

_(Fantastic)_

Twenty-two years old and no romantic interest at all. Her family worries and intervenes.

Steven offers to pretend to be a lover.

They pull it off, and the minor annoyance is dealt with, behind them now.

_(He seems like such a nice boy)_

Seventh year of hunting, she runs into two, a man with azure hair and a woman with long green hair braided back. This is surprisingly difficult, but she manages to kill them both.

And then she looks down at her shredded stomach and realizes that they managed to land a lethal hit, and in the adrenaline pumped state she didn't notice, but the pain will sink in eventually and she'll die from blood loss, away from civilization in a rather humiliating way.

_(Oh, no)_

He comes, just a bit late. It's still too late.

He holds her hand as she fades out, and then closes her eyes for her, to make her look more serene. Her body is put nearer to a city, and a man is manipulated into finding her.

Her family is devastated, and they arrange a private burial for the twenty-four year old woman that will never be twenty-five.

_(The casket remains closed. That is good)_

The gray-haired man in the neat suit stays behind, a look of misery on his face. The family clucks in sympathy, the sound increasing at the empty ring box he pulls out of his pocket.

_(The ring is on her finger, where it belongs)_

At the night, he comes back, and watches as a pale hand with the wedding band on the ring finger thrusts out of the earth.

_(You were just too interesting to be let eaten, my dear)_


	2. theatre of blood

**2. theatre of blood.** One long, tedious play ends, and another begins, but he likes facing it with someone else. - AU, StevenCynthia.

Continued because I was asked to.

* * *

**First Act**

The First Act was about a boy. Orphaned, grubby, barely living on the kindness of the others, he was like the other wards of the state.

His story was one of hunger, fear, dirt, and cramped spaces. Always, he'd be cold, never really warm.

It wasn't a very good story. The first act drew to a close quickly, but not quickly enough for the boy's taste.

******Second Act**

The second part was when he was older, and wandering the streets searching for work before meeting the gentleman. Something within was special, enough for him to be singled out and picked.

_(Name?)_

_(Steven, sir. Steven Stone.)_

_(You'll do.)_

The Second Act wasn't such a great part either, but it was transition, leading him into the dramatic action of his life. Opportunity, in its purest form.

But pure dark or light? He'd never know the answer.

******Third Act**

This one, this had a lot of scenes. Working under the man of the night who was the monster from stories made to scare children, who killed to survive.

Turning into the monster. Killing to survive himself, and then throwing up, before shivering and drinking again. No control for such a long time, and that was a dark scene indeed.

Killing his sire. Killing the man that had given him everything, and then weeping because he had loved the man, despite what he had done.

Leaving. Travelling. Clearing his mind, only to let it cloud over again at the slightest mention of his past. For years, he hid from everything and nothing, looking for the answer.

******Fourth Act**

Peace? Or contentment?

The once silver-haired orphan, the once jobless man, the once restless vampire found that within him. Everything in life, including life itself, was repetition, a pattern that repeated itself, resounding over the years with its long, repetitive song.

He knew most about himself. Knew that he wished to keep some part of morality within himself, and keep that part of humanity, prudish as it may have been. Others of his kind, he met, and they taught him that this method was, thankfully, not an uncommon one, and one often pursued.

He still disliked the ones that killed, when control was theirs and they could let lives be.

But bad fruit would always be there, history sang. No matter what he did, it would.

******Fifth Act**

Those thoughts in mind, he came into an argument with another one of night, one who liked to leave a trail of devastation and dead bodies behind him. He disliked him immensely, hating him almost, but kept his hands by his side and his tongue sheathed.

But when the man began to stalk a little girl, young and innocent and pure in her white dress, he lost it, and ended up taking a life of a corpse.

_(What an interesting girl.)_

Scenes changed, and the girl grew up next to him, maturing from an innocent white princess to a queen of shadows and night and true death, with him, her silver little birdie, whispering in her ears like a faithful advisor, the spy reporting to his queen.

_(Strike them, lady, make them fear the vengeance of justice.)_

And then, then, then the queen had fallen, taking out two and bleeding away, and he was lost, he admit. What of your duty, your majesty, of your loyal servant that knows not what to do even with his age?

She sighed, her life about to leave her physical shell, and he made a decision.

(_I didn't save you from being a meal to let you die in my arms.)_

The Act, and indeed, his play of solitude now was ending, coming to a close as he stood, watching the freshly dug earth be torn by the reborn queen rising once more. "The queen is dead," he whispered. "Long live the queen."

_(You were just too interesting to be let eaten, my dear.)_


	3. monsters in monochrome

**3. monsters in monochrome**. Look in the gray, and try to be realistic.

* * *

As long as she tried to not kill, as long as she only went after the weak and diseased, that was good, right? It was good that she didn't – didn't. . . .

_(But there was an entire massacre again, and she was left bloodstained and sighing regretfully as she set fire to yet another house, hiding the evidence of her crime.)_

She didn't want to be a monster.

But she drank blood to keep up this farce of living. Blood that, if she took, could kill the unwilling donator.

So she was a monster, no matter what.

_("That was an entire family of ten just there.")_

She turned, mostly reflex, but it was a poor stance for defense, for offence, poor for everything except prey.

In front of her was a true hunter of the night, looking down at her from the shadows of the trees that watched with silence. Dark eyes, deep and old, looked down at her as an angel might do to a human receiving judgement, as a magistrate might upon a sinner.

This man was dangerous. Powerful.

_("Are you going to kill me?")_

Quiet words, but ones of honesty. Even they feared fire, the frenzy of mobs out for deaths of the supernatural beings that weren't them, weren't 'normal'. To have one such as she, one so out of control around his feeding area. . . .

Riots were more than likely to come after any stranger, even if they were (mostly) innocent.

The man paused, and tipped his head, looking at her with soul-searching eyes with the calm aura.

_("No.")_

And then he was gone, flitting away from her like the finicky wind, leaving her with a bonfire of burning, drained bodies and a former hut behind her.

_(She left for another country the next night, after sleeping in the tree he'd been resting in. It still retained a bit of his faint scent, of iron and rocks and earth and calmness.)_

The child was playing with her green, long hair, fascinated by the color, and she was letting this breathing, living child do this because he didn't have much left in his life, when a familiar aura filled her presence.

_("I see you've gotten better control.")_

She didn't turn, and only continued to stroke the boy's own golden locks, plastered to his skin with sweat and a bit of blood.

_("I can wait for his breath to stop and be carried to the heavens.")_

Whatever his reason, he stayed to watch her drink from the boy after he died.

He also watched as she cried tears of watered-down blood while she shut the little boy's eyelids.

_("You're an odd one.")_

They travelled together for a bit after that. She asked a few questions about his former life, he answered politely or avoided the probe expertly, and she was considering running off by herself again when she asked about his beliefs for their kind.

_("Are we monsters?")_

His answer was the same one he'd given her to her question from their first encounter.

_("No.")_

Further question led him to point to the gray shadows lurking in the dark.

_("It's our nature. And to categorize in only black and white would be only idealistic, don't you think?")_

All her second life, she had questioned this, and he solved her curiosity just like that.

She stayed with him, with the immortal sometimes-thought-to-be-a-monster-man and the sometimes calm and peaceful philosopher. He made things better for her. His words soothed what now acted as her heart, her soul, her core. He reigned in her formerly wild sides and natures, and kept them straight.

_("Gray, don't forget the gray.")_

She didn't forget it when a human, a mere mortal who would burn bright and then fade away in time came with the right weapons to slay and restore death in a coat of black. The human woman who went after then because they were painted as monsters for trying to survive and live, she only saw black and white, but not the gray.

Stepping out with blinding speed, she knocked away her mentor and friend from the path of the sharpened wood delivering death's intent, closed her eyes, and lashed out at the woman in black with the whitish-golden hair and pale skin.

_("You sit on a throne of lies.")_

And then, with the warm blood so red and familiar splattering against her, she fell, green hair becoming stained, and laughed once as the man who was so calm, so patient with her sprang out with outrage against the bleeding woman with speed and strength and-

Oh, but she was gone by then, and saw naught of his slow demise at the hands of the monochrome woman who didn't see the gray and sat on the throne built with lies with the gray whisper man.


End file.
